SmartEyeglass was announced last autumn and now the company said it is ready to sell in 10 countries including the US, UK, Japan, and a number of European countries.

A kit costs $840, 670 Euros, 529 GBP, or 100,000 yen, depending on where you live.

Sony's SmartEyeglass looks like a pair of glasses with thick frames. But the lenses are also displays. They're 85 percent transparent, allowing you to look through the glass to see what's on the other side. You can also see text, monochrome images, or other content displayed on the glasses without shifting your gaze.

The Developer Edition hardware includes a 3MP camera with a CMOS image sensor, a gyroscope, accelerometer, electronic compass, and brightness sensor.

It is connected to an Android smartphone over Bluetooth or WiFi and it can communicate with apps running on your phone.

It can also tell you where you are by accessing your phone's GPS receiver.

A separate controller is attached to the glasses by a wire, and includes the battery, a speaker, a touch sensor, microphone, and NFC.

If Sony releases finished hardware it could have different features, a different price tag, and possibly a less clunky-looking design. However SmartEyeglass is already about half the price of a Google Glass Explorer Edition kit.

Google appears to have fudged its search results to make a quick buck from advertising, according to an Federal Trade Commission report accidently leaked to the Wall Street Journal.

The FTC has spent more than a year investigating Google;s business practices and discovered that the company has actively pursued a policy of doing evil.

The FTC's bureau of competition recommended that the commission take legal action against Google in three areas, related to the search giant's advertising practices and its use of content from other web sites to boost its own product offerings.

Competition staffers found that Google's conduct "has resulted – and will result – in real harm to consumers and to innovation in the online search and advertising markets."

Staffers recommended the FTC bring a case against Google, but they acknowledged "the many substantial risks associated" with such a move.

Google will be able to show substantial innovation, intense competition from Microsoft and speculative long-run harm," the report said.

However the biggest issue in the probe, whether Google unlawfully biased its search results in favour of its own products, the staffers said the FTC should not sue. However it was a little close.

Google was "in the unique position of being able to make or break any web-based business." Google's prominent placement of its own properties and demotion of rival sites in its search results "has resulted in significant loss of traffic to many competing vertical websites," the report said.

Staffers acknowledged challenges in determining whether Google had violated antitrust laws, in part "because of the strong procompetitive justifications Google has set forth." It added:

"We are faced with a set of facts that can most plausibly be accounted for by a narrative of mixed motives: one in which Google's course of conduct was premised on its desire to innovate and to produce a high quality search product in the face of competition, blended with the desire to direct users to its own vertical offerings (instead of those of rivals) so as to increase its own revenues. Indeed, the evidence paints a complex portrait of a company working toward an overall goal of maintaining its market share by providing the best user experience, while simultaneously engaging in tactics that resulted in harm to many vertical competitors, and likely helped to entrench Google's monopoly power over search and search advertising."

Google took unusual steps to "automatically boost the ranking of its own vertical properties above that of competitors," the report said. "For example, where Google's algorithms deemed a comparison shopping website relevant to a user's query, Google automatically returned Google Product Search – above any rival comparison shopping websites. Similarly, when Google's algorithms deemed local websites, such as Yelp or CitySearch, relevant to a user's query, Google automatically returned Google Local at the top of the [search page]."

The FTC staff found that, to improve Google's shopping results, Google scraped ratings and user reviews from Amazon.com site. It also used Amazon's product rankings to determine the order in which to rank products within Google Product Search, the staff said.

Amazon sought to bolster rivals to Google search, even at a cost to its bottom line. Google provided search services on Amazon's website, which generated almost $170 million in revenue for Amazon.

But Amazon shifted some search traffic to Microsoft's Bing, "even if it is losing money on each query," the report said. Amazon wanted to use multiple search suppliers "just to try to foster a more competitive marketplace," the staffers said.

The market for such "syndicated" search results was "not robustly competitive." It said "Google has been unilaterally reducing revenue share percentages to many of its syndication customers (in effect raising prices) with apparent impunity," the report said.

Huawei has called for Google to free up its Android Wear software and allow it to be more customisable.

Huawei is about to release its own smartwatch, which was showcased at MWC 2015 earlier this month. However the Chinese manufacturer has suggested there is not enough ‘freedom to customise’ the Android Wear platform.

Yang Yong, Huawei’s Vice President of Product Management told Trusted Reviews. He wished he could have more freedom to customise the Android Wear platform and the company needed to tell Google.

Yong said:

“Android Wear is not as open as Android. For the watch it cannot be a standard.”

All Android Wear watches offer largely similar user experiences, with interchangeable watch faces the only major point of differentiation between products. However the general operating system cannot be skinned and menus and features are unchanged between devices. Yong added that this needed to change so that users can feel that it’s their own watch, not a standard watch.

With many devices now playing in the Android Wear space, including the LG G Watch R, variety is needed to compete with the upcoming Apple Watch.

There have been plenty of rumors regarding a new Google Chromebook Pixel notebook for quite some time. Today, Google pulled the old Chromebook Pixel from the Play Store and replaced it with a new one.

While still retaining the same boxy design with rather sharp edges, Google has included some impressive upgrades on the hardware side. The precise dimensions of the new Chromebook Pixel are 297.7mm x 224.55mm x 15.3mm and it weighs 1.5kg. The new Chromebook Pixel has a 12.85-inch touchscreen with 2560x1700 resolution (239 ppi), 400 nits of brightness and 178 degree viewing angles, as well as multi-touch support.

The base version starts with a yet to be detailed Intel Broadwell Core i5 2.2GHz CPU, 8GB of memory and 16GB of storage. In addition to the base version, Google will offer LS version which features an Intel Core i7 CPU clocked at 2.4GHz, 16GB of memory and 64GB of internal storage. Google also added two new USB Type-C ports to the new Chromebook Pixel which can be used for charging, transferring data or even as an display output. In addition to the two USB Type-C port, the new Google Chromebook Pixel also comes with SD card reader, headphone jack and two standard USB ports, but lacks HDMI, DisplayPort or any other display output.

In addition to hardware changes, the new Chromebook Pixel also has an improved "smooth glass" trackpad and keyboard, a 720p wide-angle camera, dual-band 802.11ac WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0 and a much better bettery that should keep it alive for up to 12 hours on a single charge, which is definitely a nice improvement. Google also noted that there are plenty of other design improvements that hides vents and such things from view.

As noted, Google made the new Chromebook Pixel cheaper so the standard model starts at US $999 while the LS one costs US $300 more, US $1,299.

The bloke who is in charge of Google's money has suddenly designed to “sod this for a game of soldiers” and gone backpacking.

Patrick Pichette, who is 52, and Google's chief financial officer has decided to retire. In a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday, Google said Pichette has not given an effective date of his retirement.

"Patrick indicated that he intends to assist in the search for a new CFO and ensure an orderly transition, which the company expects will occur within the next six months," it added.

In a post on his personal Google+ page, Pichette said he could not find a good argument to tell [my wife] Tamar we should wait any longer for us to grab our backpacks and hit the road.

Google has reportedly disappointed analysts and investors of late. Revenue rose 15.3 per cent to $18.10bn for its fourth-quarter results. Wall Street had expected $18.46bn. Pichette joined the company in 2008. He has worked in the telecommunications sector for nearly 20 years.

Google has now officially announced its new Android Lollipop 5.1 OS which will bring improved stability and performance.

While it was rumored earlier and leaked on Google's Android One site, Google has now officially announced its new Android 5.1 OS version at its official Android blog. While it will be a minor update, the new Android 5.1 "improves stability and performance" when compared to original Android 5.0 OS, according to Google.

While it is still a minor update, the Android 5.1 will not be all about stability and performance but also bring some new features including support for multiple SIM slots, HD Voice, as well as a new security feature, the Device Protection. The Device Protection will lock a lost or a stolen device until user signs with Google account and even stays after a factory reset.

The new Android 5.1 OS will also bring an ability to join Wi-Fi networks and control your paired Bluetooth devices directly from Quick Settings.

Unfortunately, Google only noted that Android 5.1 will start rolling out but did not specify when and to which devices. Hopefully, our very own Nexus devices should get it soon.

Google is going to rope in a new supplier for its next Nexus. According Kevin Yang, director of China research at iSuppli, Google is set to tap Huawei to make its next Nexus.

It will be the first time Google has turned to a Chinese phone vendor for Nexus duties, but it will serve the search engine well for getting its foot in the door in the lucrative Chinese market. China is trying its best to shut out foreign tech companies and this is a little harder if Google is partnered with one of the big Chinese companies.

Huawei was found to be the fourth largest phone vendor in the world, behind only Apple, Samsung and Lenovo. Previous Nexus devices have been made by Samsung, Asus, HTC and LG. LG is apparently also be making a Nexus device this year, too.There is some speculation that Huawei will be making the cheap and cheerful version which will go into developing markets.

It is starting to look like only Apple and its allies in the Tame Apple press think that smartwatches are a good idea.

Google's smartwatch initiative Android Wear is crawling along like one of the overweight joggers on the second day of their New Year's resolution.

Android Wear sold 15.6 percent of the total "smart wearable bands" market in 2014, according to market analysts at Canalys.

The company says it believes that out of 4.6 million devices sold last year, the six Android Wear models that hit the market together sold about 720,000 units.

The analysts included any wrist-worn devices capable of running applications made by a third party, which includes Pebble and Samsung's Tizen-powered watches.

Canalys said in a report it published that Android Wear's first few months of sales fell below expectations from the search giant.

Smartwatches were outsold by fitness bands three to one, the analysts claim. The simpler wristband devices, which focus on step-tracking and fitness, are sold by companies like Fitbit, Razer and Jawbone.

The bands lacked a screen and support for outside apps, but beat out smartwatches on battery life.

The analysts say that the problem is that Android Wear devices' brightly lit touchscreens and smartphone notifications that can quickly drain their small batteries.

While no one in their right mine would buy one now, all that is expected to change when Apple releases its watch and markets it to the point where people believe it is a good thing. Apple's watch has the advantage that it is so late that it is running on ideas tried by its rivals.Google is expected to unveil Android Wear 2.0 this year, with improvements that will make Apple's watch look rubbish.

Unfortunately, it is not about technology, it is about convincing stupid people to pay over the odds of toys which they never use. Apple has the skills and the fanbase to do that.

Google has worked out that the reason that its Glass product was never going to work was because it they made you look like you were an axe murderer on their way to their part-time job as a stalker of women.

The search engine pulled the product even if it had some success, with the promise that it would bring it back when it worked out a way that that did not involve you sitting in a corner looking like an idiot talking to yourself.

Now it seems that Nest founder Tony Fadell may be taking over Google Glass design. Apple’s favourite unpaid PR company The New York Times reports that Google is starting from scratch, and won't reveal the redesigned product until it's completely finished.

This time there will be no public experimentation and it would not be released until it is perfect.That does not mean the lessons learned through Google's Explorer Program will be thrown out the window.

Fadell says all that data will be considered throughout the process as the company attempts to retool the device. “Early Glass efforts have broken ground and allowed us to learn what's important to consumers and enterprises alike,” he said.

Fadell's record of accomplishment includes the iPod so he has a history of repackaging useless gadgets in a way that will make people like them.